"I'll not see her," declared Margaret.

"Oh, yes, you will," said Lucia. "Grandmother always has her way."

Margaret turned to the maid. "Tell her I had just gone to my room
with a raging headache."

The maid departed. Margaret made a detour, entered the house by
the kitchen door and went up to her room. She wrenched off blouse
and skirt, got into a dressing sacque and let down her thick black
hair. The headache was now real, so upsetting to digestion had
been the advent of Madam Bowker, obviously on mischief bent. "She
transforms me into a raging devil," thought Margaret, staring at
her fiercely sullen countenance in the mirror of the dressing
table. "I wish I'd gone in to see her. I'm in just the right
humor."

The door opened and Margaret whisked round to blast the intruder
who had dared adventure her privacy without knocking. There stood
her grandmother--ebon staff in gloved hand--erect, spare body in
rustling silk--gray-white hair massed before a sort of turban--
steel-blue eyes flashing, delicate nostrils dilating with the
breath of battle.

"Ah--Margaret!" said she, and her sharp, quarrel-seeking voice
tortured the girl's nerves like the point of a lancet. "They tell
me you have a headache." She lifted her lorgnon and scrutinized
the pale, angry face of her granddaughter. "I see they were
telling me the truth. You are haggard and drawn and distressingly